Eva Sørensen, Professor in Public Administration and Democracy, Roskilde University

Curbing political polarization through co-creation of public policy

1. CURBING POLITICAL POLARIZATION
THROUGH CO-CREATION OF PUBLIC
POLICY
Eva Sørensen
Professor in Public Administration and Democracy
Roskilde University

2. THE MESS WE ARE IN
➢We live in times of political polarizationwhere
rising levels of conflict threaten to destabilize
liberal democracies
➢Political disagreement is a constitutive feature
of liberal democracy
➢BUT it is a liability if it turns into an antagonistic
battle between enemies who seek to eliminate
each other
➢It undermines the agonistic respect between
political contestants that distinguishes liberal
from illiberal democracy
➢Agonism is a political code of conduct
allowing us to fight for our views while
defending the rights of others to do the same

3. THE IMPACT ON PARTY POLITICS AND
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
➢In polarized times the easy way to get re-elected is to
choose sides, speak to the quire and stigmatize political
contestants
➢This is what illiberal populists do: “I am representing the
people and those citizens, elites and institutions who
question this are enemies of the people”
➢In such a political climate there is no room for political
negotiation and compromise
➢It becomes dangerous to be a politician because that
some will see you as an enemy rather than as someone
who sees things differently

4. THE CHALLENGE TO PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATORS
➢In a polarized political climate, there is little room for nuanced
positions and critical reflection
➢What counts as facts is what fits into the chosen political
narrative
➢The skepticism towards expertise and scientific knowledge
delimits the ability of public bureaucracies to qualify and
innovate policies
➢Rather than being a joint venture between politicians and civil
servants, policy-making becomes dictated solely by politics
➢Public administrators that stick to facts and insist on following
the letter of the law is accused of being deep state

5. THE BIG QUESTION
➢In some countries, the level of political polarization
has reached a level where it undermines citizens’
trustin politicians and the democratic political
institutions
➢Threatshave become common in political
debates, and violent political acts are growing in
numbers
➢Therefore, political scientists and policy analysts
are currently engaged in an intense debate about
how to curb political polarization

6. THE JOINT MESSAGE FROM RESEARCH
➢Need for collaborative fora where political
contestants engage in the co-creation of policies
➢Co-creationhere refers to when public and
private stakeholders formulate and implement
policies together in response to pressing policy
problems
➢The basic idea is that face-to-face conversation
undermine enemy images, inspires policy
innovation and creates joint ownership to new
policies

7. THE DISAGREEMENT
➢There is considerable disagreement regarding how
to design such co-creations
➢Some advocate for mini-publics and citizen
assembliesthat operate at a safe distance from, or
maybe even substitute, traditional representative
political assemblies of elected politicians
➢Others, including me, insist that politicians should be
involved in the co-creation of politics with
contesting citizens to ensure policy uptake and
depolarize competitive politics

8. TWO ILLUSTRATIVE
EXAMPLES
➢In Ireland, politicians from different parties and
a representative segment of citizens jointly
negotiated a policy on highly controversial issue
–a new abortion law -that was later passed by
the population in a referendum
➢In Denmark, a Green Tripartite composed of the
coalition government and representatives from
Danish agriculture and environmentalists
agreed on the terms for introducing a CO2 tax
on agriculture and turning large areas of
agricultural land into wildlife and forest

9. NEW ROLE TO POLITICIANS
➢Interactive political leadership
✓Involve citizens in policy making
✓Make sure to involve different camps in a political conflict in
defining challenges and negotiating solutions
✓Build strong institutional linkages between policy co-creation
fora and competitive party politics by involving politicians
from different parties

10. NEW ROLE FOR PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATORS
➢Public administration as boundary spanning
✓Orchestrate conversations between citizens with conflicting
views
✓Facilitate dialogue between citizens and politicians
✓Provide the inputs they need to develop well-informed
policies
✓Implement policy solutions with citizens

11. Thanks for
listening